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Condemning Haifa to celebrating Bhima-Koregaon: The hypocrisy of left liberals

Nithesh S
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Condemning Haifa to celebrating Bhima-Koregaon: The hypocrisy of left liberals

The relationship between logic and leftist historians has been a difficult one. Their incoherence and blatant opportunism becomes evident especially when it comes to colonial history.

Recently, the left-liberal ecosystem happily approved the celebration of Mahar victory over Peshwas because of their support to Dalit activism. However, within a few weeks, the same ecosystem is uncomfortable with celebration of Indian army’s victory over Turks and liberation of Haifa because of the colonial nature of the expedition.

While writing on Bhima Koregaon war, Scroll.in journalist Shoaib Daniyal is comfortable with celebration of multiple versions of history in his article titled Celebrating Bhima Koregaon is unpatriotic? So why not other British victories in India too? He writes :

Multiple Pasts

Holding multiple perspectives of the past is quite normal. The Indian peoples are a variegated lot and so are their histories. It is, therefore, possible to both mourn Bhima Koregaon as a victory for British colonialism and celebrate it for helping destroy a terrible system of caste apartheid.

Indians, in fact, have mostly been comfortable with this complexity. Until now, that is. Remember, Bhima Koregaon had been celebrated without incident for 90 years until this year. What has changed now is the emergence of the BJP’s strict European-style nationalism, where anything other than the nationalist narrative is sought to be airbrushed. But given India’s fantastic diversity and long record of resistance to one-size-fits-all narratives, this mono-nationalism might take some time to take shape, if, that is, the BJP manages to make it happen at all.

In the past, while writing on Haifa victory of Indian Cavalry, the same journalist had taken a 180 degree turn. The title of his article was From Haifa to Jallianwallah Bagh: Celebrating the Raj’s military history will open a can of worms.  The same author had then felt that memories of colonial wars and pride over exploits of British Indian Army is a case of ‘Commemorating Colonialism’. Here , he had said:

Commemorating colonialism?

The Jallianwallah Bagh massacre, while the most well known, was just one of several atrocities committed by the British Indian Army in their endeavour to maintain colonial rule in the subcontinent. In spite of this rather sordid history, a curious move has been afoot in India to honour and commemorate the colonial armies that served the British Raj.

The latest demand comes from New Delhi, where attempts were made to rename Teen Murti Marg to Teen Murti Haifa Marg, after the Israeli city. This was to commemorate the Battle of Haifa in 1918, where the British Indian Army’s soldiers displayed exemplary bravery while fighting the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. In fact, for some time now, there have been calls for the modern Indian state to remember the soldiers who gave up their lives while defending the British Empire.

There is a problematic part to this equation: colonialism. The British Indian Army was the world’s foremost colonial military in the world. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, the predecessors of the British Indian Army defeated one Indian state after the other to establish colonial rule over the subcontinent. They also put down numerous revolts – the Santhal Rebellion, the Chittagong uprising and the Revolt of 1857, to name a few – as Indians struggled desperately to overthrow the foreign yoke.

He ended this article with a largely contradictory opinion in comparison to his assessment of Bhima Koregaon victory of British Indian Army.

It is then a curious act of historical masochism that Indians, as the victims of this very army of colonial occupation, now want to celebrate its exploits in service of the British Empire.

Where was Shoaib Daniyal’s conscience when Bhima Koregaon victory was being celebrated?

The Hypocrisy of Left Liberals

When the narrative suits their political ends, especially anti-RSS propaganda, the left-liberal ecosystem is blind to the colonial nature of British Indian Army. However, when same British Indian Army has helped Israel, a country that is currently developing good relations with India, they are suddenly aware of the colonial nature of British Indian Army. Reason? RSS loves Israel and the left-liberal ecosystem hates Israel.

This contradiction in their thinking confirms one fact. They hate RSS to the core and hence, they will indulge in all sorts of mental gymnastics to twist history to suit their political narratives.

Fact check: Is NDTV carrying ‘ads for call girls’ for attracting revenue or traffic?

OpIndia Staff
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Fact check: Is NDTV carrying ‘ads for call girls’ for attracting revenue or traffic?

On Monday night, some Twitter users shared a screenshot of a page from NDTV website that seemingly carried a phone number for getting call girls in Gwalior city of India. They wondered if this was an ‘advertisement’ and NDTV was earning through such dubious means given that their business appears in doldrums. NDTV had recently announced that they were laying off 25% of their workforce.


As one can see, when you click the link given in the above tweet, the NDTV page (when seen on mobile devices) indeed carries what is shown in the image. However, on desktop, the result is a little bit different and the above term appears as a title with the body saying “Your search did not match any documents”.

It is basically a search result page, and one can indeed type anything after “ndtv.com/topic/” in a browser and the resultant page will show something similar.

Therefore, can one say that the above tweet was misleading? Is NDTV entirely innocent and not carrying any pages that have advertisements for call girls?

Yes, and No.

While it is indeed not any advertisement or editorial content being carried by the NDTV website, the fact is that NDTV is choosing to get such search results ‘indexed’ by Google . When one searches for the exact phrase (displayed in the image) on Google, only NDTV pages are returned, confirming that the website was choosing to get the search terms indexed.

In simple terms, NDTV has created webpages (automatically created) based on thousands of keywords they believe can give them traffic but are not related to any content on NDTV. These keywords could have been chosen by some algorithm, which did not make exceptions for such obscene or irrelevant keywords.

We tried to check if NDTV has indexed more search results pages based on such obscene or irrelevant keywords, and there indeed were thousands of indexed pages on Google.

So NDTV could be getting some traffic because there are people who are searching for call girls. Whether this was a deliberate decision by the website to attract extra traffic, or an oversight while indexing search terms, is something only NDTV can answer.

We tried to check other news portals if they are indexing similar obscene or irrelevant keywords, and results were mixed (some were as much ‘guilty’ as NDTV, while some desisted from this practice).

To sum it up. NDTV is not carrying any advertisements for call girls, but they are surely tricking – either deliberately or inadvertently – many visitors who are looking for call girls, not any news articles, a plausible violation of Google’s rules for websites. Recently, NDTV had declared that they were number one among news websites in terms of traffic.


Update: NDTV has responded to this issue and they have admitted a tech flaw and oversight, but denied any deliberate attempt to attract traffic through such dubious means. You can read about their response here.

General Bipin Rawat is right about Social Media being used to target Army

K Bhattacharjee
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General Bipin Rawat is right about Social Media being used to target Army

On the occasion of Army Day, General Bipin Rawat expressed his anguish at the use of Social Media to target the Indian Army. In an event in Delhi, he remarked that Social Media was being used against the Indian Army and urged the citizens of the country to be careful in its use.


The comments of the Army come only a few days after a media portal The Quint published a report that vindicated the Pakistani narrative about Kulbhushan Jadhav. Eventually, the Pakistani Media and official Pakistani handles had started quoting The Quint’s article to justify its treatment of Kulbhushan Jadhav.


Portals like The Quint are a major force to reckon with on the social media, and thus Army Chief’s comments could be seen in this context. Tragically, Pakistan does not need to do something special as many Indian portals and individuals are making their job easier.

While the report on Kulbhushan Yadav was not directly related to the Army, The Quint has earlier rubbed the Indian Army the wrong way. Not too long ago, one ‘sting operation’ by the portal led to one Jawan, Lance Naik Roy Mathew, committing suicide after the video of the sting went viral on Social Media. But thus far, they have managed to avoid any repercussions for their less than praiseworthy ‘Journalism’.

Apart from The Quint, another portal that is a major force on social media, The Wire stooped to a new low and thought they were providing some great insight when they decided to compare Army Chief General Bipin Rawat with General Dyer.

Another news portal, Firstpost, had too published an article that maligned the Indian Army by twisting facts around the Bangladesh liberation war. The author of the article had put his anti-Army comments on Twitter too.

Not just such websites  provide fodder for anti-army sentiments on the social media, many individuals spewing venom against the Army, and especially the Army Chief, has become sort of a norm. Arvind Kejriwal’s close associate and Gurmehar Kaur’s mentor, Ram Subramaniam, recently started a Twitter storm with his deplorable remarks on the Army.


Kejriwal himself had demanded proof of surgical strikes, which was opposed in his own party as something that will hurt the confidence and morale of the Indian Army.

Apart from Kejriwal, politicians like Kavita Krishnan, who is secretary and Polit-Bureau member of CPI(ML), had dubbed the killing of Burhan Wani by our security forces as ‘extra judicial killing’:


The Communist leaders have been particularly relentless in their attacks against the current Army Chief. In an editorial published in Peoples Democracy, the weekly newspaper of the CPI(M), the author accused General Bipin Rawat of damaging the Army’s reputation by defending Major Gogoi’s actions.

Although communists have not been wining any major elections, they do affect the discourse on social media, with help from a sympathetic mainstream media. JNU students like Kanhaiya Kumar, who accuse the Indian Army of rapes, have often been posting comments on social media.

Retired Army Man Lt General H S Panag too had tweeted a misleading photo to score a political point over “nationalist forces.”

In wake of such incidents, it is only natural then that the Army Chief on Army Day has appealed to the citizens to express some caution while using Social Media.

Congress leader caught on camera abusing senior police officer during Rahul Gandhi’s event

OpIndia Staff
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Congress leader caught on camera abusing senior police officer during Rahul Gandhi’s event

Rahul Gandhi on Monday started his two day visit to Uttar Pradesh, when he will also visit his parliamentary constituency Amethi, which has already been in the news for amusing reasons.

We had reported earlier in the day about how posters had emerged in Amethi, which depicted Rahul as an incarnation of lord Ram and PM Modi as Ravana. In that poster Rahul was seen aiming some sort of a bow or a gun at PM Modi who was depicted as Ravan with 10 heads.

Now this visit is in the news after it has been reported that a Congress MLC named Deepak Singh has been caught abusing a senior police officer during a Rahul Gandhi event, when they were locked in a heated argument. This incident happened in the Salon town of Rae Bareli.


As reported, the Congress MLC named Deepak Singh was recorded abusing the Additional SP of Rae Bareli, minutes before Rahul Gandhi started to address a public meeting in the area. Also during the course of the video, one can hear parts of it being censored, leading to the possible assumption of the Congress MLC using abusive words.

In his defence the MLC has claimed that he was merely trying to pacify the crowd and convince the SP in question. It is speculated that the MLC has close ties to the Gandhi family and is a native of Rae Bareli.

Apart from this, it has been reported that congress workers led by the MLC Deepak Singh lathi charged protesters in the area, who were questioning why Rahul Gandhi has not completed development work in Amethi.

It seems that following these clashes, the police intervened and BJP MLA Dal Bahadur Kori, one of the persons on the scene and a possible protester alleged that they were attacked by congress workers.

A tale of two narratives: How the ecosystem made one a hero, other a victim

Nirwa Mehta
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A tale of two narratives: How the ecosystem made one a hero, other a victim

They are both in their early 20s and both lost their fathers, tragically. One became a ‘poster girl for the liberal ecosystem’, other a ‘victim of right wing politics’.

In 2016, one Gurmehar Kaur posted a video on social media claiming how her father, Captain Mandeep Singh, was martyred in the 1999 Kargil War.

She claimed that while she used to once hate Pakistanis but she doesn’t anymore. She said she doesn’t, because Pakistan didn’t kill her father, war did. Indeed, the casualties of war are not just limited to the soldiers who lay down their lives. Their families also get devastated and it takes years to come to terms with the loss. However, the army records say otherwise about the martyred soldier. Her father laid down his life while battling an attack by militants on the midnight of 6th August, 1999 in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara. By then, the Kargil War was long over. But Gurmehar Kaur was the new hero.

On 1st December, 2014, Judge Loya, who was the special Central Bureau of Investigation judge presiding over the trial of BJP President Amit Shah and various top cops of Gujarat in the alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bi, died in Nagpur, at the age of 48. His death has come under a lot of spotlight, with many politicians and journalists casting aspersions on the circumstances of his death and saying that his demise was politically motivated.

However, his son held an emotional press conference yesterday, urging NGOs, politicians and journalists to leave them alone as they do not suspect any foul play. But journalists and politicians decided they know better than a 20-something impressionable young boy who just has to be saying all that under pressure, because what would a 20 something year old know? Anuj Loya, a second year law student, was the victim.

Later when Gurmehar spoke against AVBP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students wing of the RSS) during the Ramjas incident last year, support poured in from all directions.


Gurmehar was ‘right’ and ‘brave’ because she ‘stood up’ against the ‘nationalistic forces’. This is like Pakistan hailing Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for questioning the surgical strikes. Or how Pakistan started quoting The Quint’s propaganda against Kulbhushan Jadhav to discredit India. Similarly, anyone who parroted the narrative they had in mind, was applauded and celebrated as a hero. The similarity in their modus operandi, is shocking and heartbreakingly similar.

Anuj Loya, who is perhaps as old as Gurmehar, lost his father three years back when he was on a personal visit to Nagpur. Judge Loya was sitting over a high profile case involving the then MLA of Gujarat and a close aide of former chief minister of Gujarat and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah. Last few months, many journalists and politicians have brought up Judge Loya’s death, claiming, naye, insisting that it was ‘mysterious’, casting aspersions that perhaps Shah had something to do with it.

However, the facts claimed otherwise. But once the wheels of narrative have been set in motion, how can it possibly be stopped? There is only one way. Anuj Loya is a young, impressionable boy. He has got to be acting under pressure from the mighty and the powerful. Anyone who did not adhere to the narrative was called a victim. And not just any victim. A victim of ‘fascist nationalist forces’, of course.

It almost seems like the rot in the democracy of India, is so deep that the ‘opposition’ comes out in full force if it suits their agenda. Journalists, politicians, social media team of opposition, all came together to discredit Loya.


Delhi Chief Minister, who was vocally supporting Gurmehar, resorted to retweeting tweets by rumormongers.

Soon enough, others pitched in, trying to give it a new twist.

Boxing enthusiast masquerading as journalist Rajdeep Sardesai floated a conspiracy theory whether Anuj was saying all this under pressure from someone.


But when Sunanda Pushkar, who was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a hotel in Delhi, Sardesai was found questioning the police for doing their job.

Similarly, Prashant Bhushan, who called PIL filed by senior politician Subramanian Swamy on Sunanda Pushkar’s death a ‘political interest litigation’, was quick to refer to Anuj Loya’s lawyer, Ameet Naik as Amit Shah.


Another so called journalist, Nikhil Wagle, insists on evidence even for carrying out investigation in Sunanda Pushkar’s death but wants the Supreme Court to continue with investigation in Judge Loya’s death even if his family does not suspect a foul play, because it is now matter of ‘public importance’.


This goes out to show that when the ’eminent intellectuals’ talk about youth taking the centre-stage, they essentially want the ones who toe their political line. The ‘free and independent thinkers’ who could further their narrative. The state of the Indian ‘intelligentsia’ is such, that only those who are gullible enough to toe their motivated line, are hailed as free thinkers, while others who dare to speak as they wish, are victims of the ones the intelligentsia seek to malign. The intellectual dishonesty in public discourse seems to find a new abyss each passing day.

Jonty Rhodes loves India and the feeling is mutual

OpIndia Staff
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Jonty Rhodes loves India and the feeling is mutual

India is often misrepresented. While some organisations with vested interests try to portray India as an unclean, backward nation, every once in a while someone comes along who reminds us of the glory and beauty that India is. One of them is former South African cricketer, Jonty Rhodes.

The legendary player, who made fielding into an art form, is currently working for the IPL team Mumbai Indians and often visits India with his family. Whenever he does, he never fails to take his family along on trips, exploring India’s monuments, culture, lifestyle and food. His love for our country can be guessed from the fact that he has even named his daughter, his firstborn child with wife Melanie, as India Rhodes.

Born in Mumbai, India Rhodes often features in his father’s adorable posts on social media.


It is amusing to see Rhodes even taking part in the various initiatives taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Baby India also enjoyed stretching on International Day of Yoga.


Not just India Rhodes, even her father seems to be in love with the country his daughter is named after.


He likes to spend his time exploring #IncredibleIndia..


..and being part of Indian festivals.


Well, India loves Jonty Rhodes too and India wishes India the best in life.

On Army Day : How General Thimayya stood up to Nehru’s Chief Minister for the honour of a woman

Abhishek Banerjee
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On Army Day : How General Thimayya stood up to Nehru’s Chief Minister for the honour of a woman

Our valiant Indian Army has always shown exemplary courage in protecting the nation from external enemies. At the Siachen glacier, temperatures can dip to -50 degrees Celsius.  In the Thar desert of Rajasthan, the temperature can soar to 50 degrees Celsius. Imagine what would happen to us, to our family and our friends, to our homes and the things we love, if the Indian Army took a day off.

But our Indian Army also has a glorious tradition of standing up for all that is fair and just and good within the country. An earthquake, landslide or flood? The Army is there. A giant international sporting competition is about to start in a few days and the infrastructure is still not ready because economist Prime Minister and his greedy colleagues ate all the money? Don’t worry, the Indian Army will build the suspension bridge in a matter of hours to save India the blushes before foreign visitors.

I was saving this story to tell it on Army Day. It is about the legendary General Thimayya, one of Nehru’s most powerful Chief Ministers and the honor of a woman. I first came across this story somewhere on Facebook. Intrigued, I looked everywhere for a reference, until I found the definitive version from Maj. Gen. Dhruv C Katoch published in the magazine “Salute to the Indian soldier.”

The year was 1959 and the place was Amritsar, where 5 Jat was posted at the time. Some of the officers and their wives had gone to the railway station to see off an officer and his wife who was going away on duty. At the railway station, there were some goons who passed lewd remarks and actually tried to molest the women. Not surprisingly, the officers of the unit began chasing the goons, who ran away and tried to hide in a nearby cinema hall.

The Commanding Officer of the unit was one Colonel Jyoti Mohan Sen, who on learning about the incident, immediately sent reinforcements to surround the cinema hall from all sides. The goons were captured and detained inside the Army Camp.

Here is where the story gets interesting. What kind of goon would be so power drunk that he would think there would no consequences for trying to molest a woman in the presence of officers of the Indian Army? That would be the son of Pratap Singh Kairon, then the Chief Minister of Punjab. Veteran Congressman, one of Nehru’s confidants.

A night in detention for the son of the Honorable Chief Minister? Imagine the anger of Honorable Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon, who on the next day, had to go personally to rescue his son. The story even goes that he was made to walk! No VVIP vehicle!

Naturally, the matter echoed in Parliament, but not in the way you would like it. Those were different times. Back then, democracy was not in danger and expressing dissent was real easy.

And so it happened that an explanation was sought … not from Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon, even less from his boss Bharat Ratna Prime Minister Nehru. An explanation was sought from Army Chief General Thimayya for the conduct of his officers.

General Thimayya’s  response :  “If we cannot defend the honour of our women, how can you expect us to defend the honour of our country?”

This Army Day, please don’t forget to pay your tribute to the Indian soldier.

Left parties stage protest in Delhi against the visit of Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu

OpIndia Staff
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Left parties stage protest in Delhi against the visit of Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touched down in New Delhi on Sunday to kick start his tour of India which will culminate on 19th January.

On the second day of the visit it was reported that India-Israel bilateral trade is being taken to new heights, via an India-Israel business innovation forum. This forum is being organised in a joint collaboration between a Confederation of Indian Industry, Israel embassy and Invest India (GOI initiative).

But while the two countries try to forge a better strategic relationship, the left parties of India seem to have decided to try and derail the process, by protesting against PM Netanyahu:


As seen in the ANI tweet, leftist organisations like the SUCI and CPI are protesting against PM Netanyahu and incidentally one of the politicians leading it is CPI MP D Raja.

Raja has also been in the storm recently for vising Supreme Court judge Justice Chelameswar’s home, soon after the latter and three other judges complained against the Chief Justice of India in a press conference. This act of Raja was considered by many as giving a political colour to the matter, which strictly speaking, was considered as an internal matter of the judiciary.

This protest predictably drew reactions from various people:


As per other reports, these left parties have also been calling Netanyahu a killer and have been chanting slogans like, “Khuni Netanyahu wapas jao” (Killer Netanyahu go back) and “Netanyahu Murdabad” (Down with Netanyahu).

Farooq Abdullah says India and Pakistan are equally involved In each other’s tragedies

Nithesh S
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Farooq Abdullah says India and Pakistan are equally involved In each other’s tragedies

All members of the Indian Parliament take the following oath before assuming their seat in Lok Sabha :

“I, _______., having been elected (or nominated) a member of the House of the People do swear in the name of God / solemnly affirm that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India and that I will faithfully discharge the duty upon which I am about to enter.”

Mr Farooq Abdullah, a sitting MP in current Lok Sabha has continuously violated this oath by mortgaging India’s territorial integrity to Kashmiri politics and Pakistan appeasement. He had earlier asked India to give up its legal right over Pakistan Occupied Kashmir on November 28, 2017.

Today he has continued his streak of making misplaced statements. He said :

Our neighbour has its own hates. They think we have divided Pakistan by taking Bangladesh. We were not dividers. The tragedy was in the country itself. It was not our creation. That is the tragedy we still face,” said Abdullah.

Mr Abdullah simplifies complex political, linguistic and religious conflicts that led to creation of Bangladesh into a ‘tragedy’. Of course, the ‘tragedy’ in erstwhile East Pakistan was not our creation. But real tragedies that people are facing in Kashmir are entirely the creation of Pakistan. The first stone was thrown by Pakistan when it invaded independent state of Kashmir. Though there were many opportunities to resolve the conflicts, Pakistan has continuously refused to reach a settlement on Kashmir. He went on to say something more atrocious.

 “And don’t say we are not involved in their tragedy. As much as they are involved in our tragedy, we are also involved in their tragedies. It’s not one-sided.

When Mr Abdullah equated Pakistani and Indian involvement in the creation of tragedies, he is echoing Pakistan’s official ‘victim of terror’ posture. Mr Abdullah is tacitly accusing India of involving in terror and unprovoked LoC crossfire. By making these kind of statements, he is playing into the hands of terrorists and anti-India elements on both sides of the border.

In spite of several gestures of goodwill shown by India, Pakistan has continued to misuse India’s magnanimity. It is quite clear that it sticks to its goal of bleeding India by a thousand cuts and exonerating Pakistan of its sins doesn’t serve India’s interest.

Rahul Gandhi goofs up while wishing our jawans on Army Day

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi goofs up while wishing our jawans on Army Day

While India celebrates Army Day today, all politicians and leaders took to Twitter to wish our jawans and thank them for their selfless service to the nation.

Rahul Gandhi, the President of Indian National Congress also took to Twitter to wish our jawans.


To any layman, there would seem nothing wrong with what Rahul Gandhi had tweeted. But ‘LiveFist’ which is a defence reporting portal has always had a keen eye for spotting gaffes where nobody sees one. Soon, LiveFist tweeted that the picture used by Rahul Gandhi has a Bell Huey Helicopter and the Indian Army doesn’t operate those.


This is not the first time LiveFist has corrected the use of erroneous photographs.

In October 2017, Congress had put out a write up claiming that SAAB builds F-16 ‘fighter aircrafts’, this too was corrected by LiveFist.


In November 2017, LiveFist had corrected the spelling of ‘Rafale” that was spelt as “Rafel” by INC.


LiveFist had also corrected news agencies and portals several times on their usage of unrelated pictured.


With general ignorance pertaining to all things military, this thread by LiveFist seems far from over.

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